1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an alarm system and, more particularly, to a system and method for adjusting the time for creating an alarm signal based upon a user-requested alarm time and an unexpected condition(s), such as local weather, local traffic, and airplane arrival or departure time.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Currently, there are alarm systems in the form of alarm clocks and wake up call services. A rudimentary alarm clock or an alarm watch awakes the user by an alarm. A more sophisticated radio alarm clock awakes the user by an alarm or the sound of a radio. An alarm clock that integrates with an electronic device, such as a stereo, a television, and a computer, may awake the user by switching on the electronic device or a program within the electronic device. For example, a stereo alarm clock may awake the user with the playing of music from a compact disc (CD) in a CD player, and a television alarm clock may awake the user with the playing of a certain channel. However, these alarm systems base the activation of the alarm time solely on the user-requested alarm time. With the alarm clock style system, the user requests an alarm time by, for example, changing first to an alarm mode and then pressing hour and minute, or + and −, buttons to set the specific user-requested alarm time.
Even though the alarm clock is able to sound an alarm at the user-requested time to signal to the user the wake up time, there are often unexpected conditions that would have made the user change the user-requested time, either to wake up earlier or later, had the user known of their existence or arrival. The unexpected condition(s) may, for example, be simply unknown to the user or have arisen after the user has entered the user-requested alarm time. For example, a significant amount of snow may accumulate overnight, which would require the user to wake up early to shovel it and add to user's travel time to work or school. Rain that would have arrived during the user's commute may also add to user's travel time. A user may also wish to sleep in a little later had he/she known that traffic is lighter than usual on the routes that he/she uses to get to work or school. On the other hand, the user should wake up earlier if the traffic is heavier than usual on the routes that he/she uses to get to work or school. Unexpected conditions may also relate to the arrival/departure time of airplane, bus, train, or other mass-transit transportation vehicles, when the alarm is activated solely or partly because of the need for the user to catch a transportation vehicle or pick someone from a transportation vehicle. Because the alarm clock style system is solely based on a user-requested alarm time, the alarm clock style system is not able to change the time of activating the alarm based on unexpected conditions that may be unknown to the user or have arisen after the use-requested alarm time has been entered. Although the user, in a radio alarm clock system, may conceivably tune the radio to a station that plays primarily a particular type of unexpected condition, such as weather forecasts, traffic reports and flight arrival/departure time, he/she has no means to integrate the unexpected condition information reported in the radio to advance or delay the alarm activation time. Moreover, he/she also has no control over which flight or what region of the country for which a weather forecast or traffics report is being broadcast.
Another type of alarm system is a wake up call service, which may be performed automatically by servers or manually by operators. These services are often available in a hotel or provided by a 1-900 paid telephone service. They usually awake the user with the ringing of a telephone. Oftentimes a short message is also delivered to the user after he/she picks up the phone, such as “this is your wake-up call, and the present time is 6:00 AM.” Similarly to the alarm clock style system described above, the wake-up call services are also based only on user-requested time. To set the alarm time, the user calls a receptionist at a hotel or an automated service. With the receptionist, the user tells him/her the time that the user wants to wake-up. With the automated service, the user inputs the user-requested time through a user interface, which may, for example, be a voice recognition system or the telephone dialing pad. Because the automated or personal wake up services are based solely on user-requested time, they suffer from the same defects in that the call back service system is not built to change the time of making the call based on unexpected conditions that may be unknown to the user or have arisen after the use-requested alarm time has been entered.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method for adjusting an alarm activation time that takes into account of a user-requested alarm time and unexpected conditions that are unknown to the user or arrive after the user has entered the user-requested alarm time. In addition to a wake up alarm, the present invention is applicable to a reminder system that is able to create an alarm signal or a reminder to remind a user of appointments in his/her calendar or date book.